So I just got back from spending another day in London - this time sorting out my visa thingy properly and spending a good 20 minutes staring at a girls underwear. Nice.

I'll explain. I'm told my "appointment" is at 2:30 pm sharp and to be there at 2:20 to see the visa person. What I am not told is that there is no set appointment, that essentially I arrive, am stuck in a room with 450 other people (seriously 450) and that we're picked to come up to cubicles for a 30 second chat by lottery. Thus 3 hours of sitting in a chair. However, this afforded some conversation with some cool people and the Guy's Favourite Pastime : Checking Out Girls. I got a vague "being checked out" vibe from a girl sitting across from me in a chair facing my way but kinda vaguely ignored it due to me reading a good book and her not being "all that". She was some of "that" - perhaps even as much as "half of all that" but definitely not "all". Plus she wasn't a certain other person who I like.

So as you can imagine, 3 hours in a small chair gets kinda cramped thus everyone kinda rotated between the floor and a chair. When "vibe" girl sat on the floor I barely registered it but still got the odd vibe - that feeling you're kinda being appraised. I then did the classic double take as I could see, from across the room, her black lacy underwear. As to whether it was an intended ploy or merely co-incidence and luck, I could not say. All I know is, she wasn't taking vast steps to rectify my "private viewing" and her legs were akimbo for a good 20 minutes. I believe I read approximately 20, perhaps so much as 30 words during that entire time.

Also I spent 7 quid on Starbucks Coffee. People complain Starbucks is too "franchised" and "destorying culture by replicating and copying - not growing" but I personally thing that anyone that can manage to accelerate my heart beat to 3000 times it's usual speed through the use of only a cold beverage deserves to be a nationwide franchise.
I'm going to write now. Because I want to.

My family has always had animals. We have them like other people have genetic defects. Much like your family may have Diabetes or Dyslexia or Stupid, we have Animals. At the moment, this takes the form of 2 cats. This is a record low for us. But the Fur helps disguise this low number.

The Fur deserves the capital letter. My cats shed fur in a manner resembling more the spawing of the tiny demon thingies in Gremlins than an actual natural act of discarding excess hair. The Fur is kind of like "The Thing" - that classic Sci Fi alien. It can resemble anyone or anything, gets every-fucking-where and can only be subdued through fire or some kind of napalm attack. I'm also pretty sure it's from space like "The Thing" but that's probobly just me. When I say the fur gets everywhere I really, really do mean it gets everywhere. I've seen coats covered in it so deeply they resemble some kind of Mega-Cat. I've pretty sure that when we get to the End Of the Universe and everything implodes and becomes tinier than an atom, the Fur will still be around.
God will be there saying: "Now there is only Nothing... oh yeah, and The Fur."
Hell, I've often assumed the Fur hiding in my cupboard was an actual garment, suitable for formal occasions. I'm even pretty sure I've worn the Fur out when I've gone drinking with friends. I remember it being warm and pulsating. I've also pretty sure I got several comments on how cool it was.

In the past we've also had birds. They didn't have the Fur but had the FuckOffs. This is slightly different to the Fur but just as irritating. We originally had a single bird named George. He was quickly tamed, lived a fairly happy life and would sit and eat our cereal with us in the morning. He was a nice pet.

Then we got him a mate. We called her Frederica.
To be fair to George, if I was shacked up with some random female I'd probobly be pretty pissed off. But Frederica did something to George. Overnight, he and Fred became the homicidal, suicidal, serial-mass-murdering-rapist-paedophiles of the bird world. Walking into their cage was placing your life in your hands and, should you leave the door open accidentally, potentially the life of countless innocents. Walking into that cage was like walking into Viet-fucking-nam, armed only with the will to live. You were likely to lose an eye, a limb or even your life should the sadistic little bastards care to take it. But they never would. That would be too easy. They, as some kind of sick, perverted couple, would get their kicks by screeching every moment you were in there and biting should you care to place their food in the wrong position, the right position or any frickin position at all. While George originally seemed happy with eating our Froot Loops while we gaily snapped photos of him to send to relatives, he now feasted only on the flesh of the innocent and, I'm fairly certain, on our fear and anxiety as well. While we actually fed him fresh fruit and water, what he really dined on was our screams for mercy and the dying pleas of the damned.

Thankfully, in the world of Dogs we've been pretty lucky. While we had a poodle with the attention span of a retarded Goldfish, she also had the mindset of a child with Attention Deficit Syndrome. On LSD. And sugar. So that was okay. We also had 2 German Shepherds capable of tearing you clean in two but unable to hurt a fly. All in all, we've been lucky. And because of my family's craze with pets, I always have and always will love animals.
But sometimes still, when it's 3am and I'm alone, I still hear in my mind the scream of a homicidal maniac Australian Rainbow parakeet in a power dive and I shiver uncontrollably.